Like that of President Donald Trump, the immigration policies of President Barack Obama have been harshly criticized by liberal media and activist organizations.
“President Obama Needs to Stop Repeating FDR’s Worst Mistake and End Family Detention Now,” a July 2015 headline by The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) declares, deeming Obama’s detention and family separation policies an inhumane disaster. The article claims the Obama Administration’s “cruel” detention and no-bond policies were bred of “an atmosphere xenophobia and hysteria”:
“Last week’s ruling is just the latest sign that the Obama administration’s family detention policy is an inhumane and illegal disaster. It follows the February 20 ruling in a case filed by the ACLU striking down the government’s no-bond policies in family detention centers and two rounds of letters from Congress urging the administration to end family detention.
“The policy was conceived last summer in an atmosphere of xenophobia and hysteria, in response to large numbers of children and families fleeing violence in Central America and coming to the United States seeking protection.”
…
“By locking up innocent mothers and children in an atmosphere of cruel uncertainty, family detention needlessly replicates the inhumanity that the U.S. government inflicted on Japanese-American families during World War II.”
Obama’s legacy could be “forever stained with having defended this cruel and unnecessary policy,” ACLU said.
In February of 2016, Politico reported that a new Obama Administration policy was “initiating a change in federal policy that could encourage so-called sanctuary cities to abandon their stance against cooperating with deportation requests.”
Under the Obama-era policy, the “Justice Department stops automatic transfers of prisoners to localities that don’t cooperate on immigration” and put “extra restraints” on sanctuary cities, according to the article:
“The new policy places the extra restraints on any city, county or state that chooses to adopt a so-called ‘sanctuary’ policy, particularly a categorical one that bars all cooperation with immigration authorities.”
And, in June of 2014, a PBS NewsHour headline declared, “U.S. releasing undocumented immigrants, but won’t say how many.”
When a surge of illegal immigrants, including 48,000 minors, became too much for Texas Border Patrol to handle, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) relocated the aliens to Arizona, where they were released. But, the administration would not disclose how many had been relocated, or how many later reported to immigration officials as they had promised to do so, PBS reported:
“The Obama administration is releasing inside the United States some immigrants who have crossed illegally into the country amid a surge in traffic across the Mexican border in southern Texas. But how many remains a mystery because the government won’t disclose the number.”
…
“The administration would not say Friday how many immigrants were affected — hundreds or thousands — or how many of those immigrants subsequently reported back to the government after 15 days as directed. As many as 400 people were flown to Arizona during one weekend last month. Many were then dropped off at bus stations to travel to their original destinations in the U.S.”
